Some political thoughts

For the past few months I've had a few thoughts rattling around in my head regarding our current political situation. Short version: I'm still finding my political stance, but there seems to be too much name-calling and too little actual political discussion to work towards solutions. Biased shouting is preventing reasonable dialogue. (See Limbaugh and Hannity vs. HuffPo and DailyKos. Note: I tend to ignore all four of these sources.)

Longer version: As far as I can tell, there is an entire spectrum of political beliefs. To simplify, we'll call one end of the spectrum the "extreme liberal" end, and the other we'll call the "extreme conservative" end. It seems to me that the people on the extremes of the spectrum are shouting very loudly at each other, and this prevents meaningful discussion. Name-calling doesn't help--I believe that most of the people leading our country at any given time are doing their best not to drive it into the ground. They want to help the nation and its people. Unfortunately, the people at each end of the spectrum have their own ideas about what is the right way to make that happen and then demonize others who happen to take a different viewpoint.

A very simple example: In general, liberals subscribe to the "tax and spend" ideology, where the public is taxed and government uses the money in different programs to meet needs of individuals/groups. Conservatives generally believe that the market should be left to operate on its own, and that individuals and communities should altruistically care for the needs of individuals/groups.

Both of these ideologies are valid ways of thinking and caring for the public. Each has their pros and cons. My point in this post is not to advocate either stance, but rather that neither side is made up completely of idiots. Smart, good people have found reasons to sway one way or the other. Maybe we should find out what those reasons are before we criticize what they choose to support. In the end, we may not be able to come to a perfect consensus. That's ok. At least we know what the others think and why. And then we can vote on it. The majority vote will win. Sometimes there's a stalemate and compromise is required. That's ok, too. That's the way this country was set up to run.

But let's not call each other names. That wasn't appropriate in Kindergarten, and it's not appropriate now.